Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

The dangers of unguided Advaita

From XXX:

Hey there Ed

I’m not sure if you remember me or not. Its XXX, I use to correspond a lot with you last year. I kind of decided at the time to go my own way and figure things out for myself. Although I got heavily mis-lead by thoughts, ideas and speculation. As a result, things have been pretty bleak and depressive.

I keep chasing after this 'thing' that I hope will solve all my problems.

In a way I feel so fed up with spirituality in general, espcially Advaita. The problem, I think, is that the pointers slowly started to become beliefs.

Last year I also was involved with alot of drugs, hallucinogens, in particular LSD. I under went what felt like ego-death, and it confirmed in a sense that there is an Absolute. Beautiful, but 'losing' or coming down from that state and back to a self was deep pain and it has left me feeling like a shell of what I use to be.

I seriously don’t know what to do anymore Ed. I don’t take substances anymore, they don’t help and potentially can cause great harm, as in my case.

The search was all I thought about, and I dropped my studies to find 'Truth'. It wasn’t a mistake at the time, I guess I needed to. Since then Ive come back to study further, I sometimes have problems concentrating like I use to. I keep going back and forth between "finding the truth is my lifes goal" to just plain fed up.

I find myself longing for what I dunno, and reading and pondering about it all again.

I feel seeking is technically wrong, and that I should give up the search, but then the fear creeps in that I might never reach the end comes into play. I struggle to relax even when I’m alone at home. Lately it’s been better, slowly I think, gradual. But sleep seems to be the only time I really enjoy. I have this fear that what I’m doing, is

ultimately pointless and that I’m just wasting my time...but then again, I don’t know what else I would do?

If it’s alright, may I ask for some guidance? What do I need to do? What should I even be doing?

Thanks a lot.

Ed

Where on earth did you get the idea that spiritual effort is "technically" wrong? Nisargadatta advises constantly abiding in the I am. He himself did so for three years before he realized. Although Ramana did not practice long, hr practiced self inquiry intently for a few minutes. He always advised people to follow the I. Robert also advised practicing self in query. It is only the neo-Advaitins that say no search is necessary, you instantaneously find enlightenment when you look inside yourself and find nothing.

They are deluded and taken by tip of the tongue enlightenment. For one thing, their method only shows there is no objective entity that you can find as you.  But you are the subject, and already are you.  You can’t find you, you can only be you.  But this “you” has hundreds of guises and forms.  You need to know them, love them in order to be done with them.

You say you think what you are doing may be pointless, but I don’t know what you are doing.  It sounds like a half-hearted search in reading books about spirituality.  I heard nothing about self-inquiry or practicing a bhaktic approach.  I heard nothing of love or of practice, only of frustration and a sense of complete confusion and “lostness.”

You put me in a difficult position. You say you're tired of Advaita. You think practice wrong. You've obtained certainty about the absolute, but feel like you have lost that state.  The absolute is not a state. You have come down from an altered state, therefore you have lost nothing. States are always temporary.  Only ordinary mind is permanent, and you have to find out completely about ordinary mind.

Now you're dissatisfied, probably because your life has gone dead. You are lost in nothingness. This is only half of the trip. The other trip is back into humanity, self and other acceptance and love.

You have to get your sense of presence, the I Am-sensation, back and enrich it. Download the Nisargadatta Gita from my website wearesentience.com. Read a paragraph or two a day. Ponder deeply the meaning. Don't tell yourself you know everything because that's what's destroying your search now. Then meditate on the I Am. Enrich it. Love it. Love everything around you. Let the love grow and fill you once again with passion and humanity. Fall in love. But make some movement. Get a lot of chanting music and play it constantly. Let it fill your soul. You have made the journey to second base, but now you have to come back to home.

Look at my recent Satsang's which have links from we are sentience.com. They always talk about the journey back. In fact, I'm sure you will have to go once again to 180° after the journey back to complete your acquaintance with the absolute again, but this time fully as a human and with a clear mind.

You need your “juice” back, your wetness.

Love, 

Ed